Swami Sunirmalananda On Education In India

Swami Sunirmalananda – a monk of Ramakrishna Order - talks about the current state of education in India

It is ignorance to think that with university degrees, we become more mature. Nowadays every locality has many postgraduates and several doctorates. And about exams, the less said the better. What is more, they say certificates are being sold for money. We have doctors and engineers, doctorates and postgraduates – almost in every family. Of course, there are definitely many hardworking and sincere students and they greatly contribute to others’ well being. However, the fact remains that many modern qualified individuals are not really as qualified as their degrees show. Therefore, the world remains what it is.

Despite having so many qualified individuals, perhaps we hardly get an opportunity of dealing with mature people in our lives.

The tragedy of the whole thing is, such immature people think they are mature because of their qualifications and pass indiscreet comments on really mature people – the flower of the earth.

The misery of the world is largely due to our not respecting those who are to be respected, and respecting those who are of the common run.

The education we receive in universities is adding more and more locks to the doors of our prison. We are getting more involved in this objective world, assuming it to be real, assuming that we shall reform it, modify it, better it, derive more happiness from it, and so on.

We need positive education, and colleges cannot give us that. Vedanta can give us that education.

Vedanta opens our eyes by giving us the ‘statement of facts’. It tells us the truth, shows us that we are being deceived by others, and leaves us to choose for ourselves what we think is best for us.

To be mature means to know that the world is impermanent, and its so-called joys and pleasures too are impermanent.

Right vision or the statement of facts is to know of things as they are. Most of us color things before even looking at them. We look at things through ‘our angle’ of vision — that is, we paint them using such colors as our ego, desires, ambitions, and so on.